


Extraordinary Humans

by GlassParade



Category: Doctor Who, Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 20:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassParade/pseuds/GlassParade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Blaine tries to help Brittany with her physics homework, her internet research gets them into quite the intergalactic pickle with a mysterious tweedy stranger in a bowtie. A crackilicious Christmas crossover series that takes place just before 'Glee Actually' and just after 'The Angels Take Manhattan'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Sane Man, One Madman With A Box, And The Girl With The Muppet Fixation

**Author's Note:**

> It's crack. I'm sorry. Originally published on [my Tumblr](http://glitterdammerung.tumblr.com) between November 2012 and January 2013 as a Christmas present of dubious quality.

"Don't usually have Americans come along," the lanky stranger in all the tweed remarked as he dashed around the...console, Blaine guessed with the one very small part of his brain that was still actively attempting to figure out what the hell was going on. "Be a refreshing change, I think - ah ah, don't touch."

Brittany pulled her hand back from the lever and rolled her eyes. "I wasn't gonna pull it. I didn't know what rooms would fall out if I did. I was just touching."

Stopping in his tracks, the Tweedy Guy - and that increasingly shrinking still logical part of Blaine's brain wondered what Kurt would have made of it, would he have been horrified? intrigued? just as freaked out as Blaine was so tweed was the least of his problems? - stared at Brittany. "You knew that lever would jettison excess cargo and space? How did you know that? You're not supposed to know that." He rounded one of the seats and came to gaze suspiciously at her, examining her ponytail, her bracelet, the enormous tabby cat in her arms. "Are you Nestene? Whifferdill? Justice Department?"

"Brittany, where are we?" Blaine asked, feeling a little rude interrupting but needing answers himself and hoping that the fact they were friends would take precedence over the weird guy's questions. "Why aren't we working on your physics homework?"

"We are." To his relief, she turned around and bounced down the steps to where he was still frozen by the door of the...box? Spaceship? that they were in, and she shifted Lord Tubbington in her arms until she could securely hold him and still reach out to take Blaine's hand. "I couldn't finish the time machine because I was missing some parts. But the internet said what I had could make an intergalactic signaling thing so I could  _summon_  a time machine, so I did."

"You still haven't told me what you are." Lanky Tweed skipped down the steps to join them, still glaring skeptically at Brittany. "Why would you want to summon a time machine if you're an ordinary human? You must be something more."

"I am," Brittany replied with a nod that set her ponytail bouncing. "I'm a Cheerio. And I was Student Council President last year."

"I haven't heard of the Cheerios. What's a Cheerio? I don't like not knowing things, I'm 900 years old, I'm supposed to know everything, I don't like this at all." Spinning on his booted heel, he whirled to face Blaine. "You, though, I like you. You've got on a bowtie. Good taste. Who are you?"

"Blaine...Blaine Anderson...Current Student Council President..." He couldn't think of anything else to do but let his natural coping mechanism kick in, which was to present an illusion of coping. How he still had the energy for this after everything that had happened and now this he had no idea, but, thank God for small favors? "And this is Brittany Pierce. We're both human..." And well, wasn't that a distinction Blaine never thought he'd be making? He didn't want to think too hard on what it meant that he was having to make it now. "Where are we? And who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor, Blaine Anderson." His smile managed to be terrifying and reassuring all at once. "As to where we are, not sure, I was aiming for The Crystalline Wastelands of Limona Orchidiosa when your friend's signal pulled me off course. Where'd I pick you two up?"

"Lima. Lima, Ohio," Blaine let his mouth reply as his brain tried to reason that there was no such place as The Crystalline Wastelands of Limona Orchidiosa and they weren't in a time machine and certainly Brittany had not built some kind of device to  _summon_ one. Blaine liked Brittany, but even after exhaustive tutoring she still thought Einstein's Theory of Relativity had to do with how closely she was related to her cousin Seth in Evanston.

His knees and hips were getting painfully stiff from standing in one place for too long but he just couldn't spare the brainpower to move, there wasn't enough left.

"Lima, Limona, close enough I suppose. Why did you flag me down, young lady?" With another of his dizzying changes of topic, the Doctor bounded back up the steps to where Brittany was squinting at a particularly sparkly-knobbed switch, seemingly oblivious to Lord Tubbington beginning to squirm in her grip. "What was so very vastly important that you had to build a Temporal Telegraph and pull me right out of the Time Vortex? That's a very dangerous thing to do."

"There's something I need to do," Brittany replied simply, setting Lord Tubbington down on the metal grid flooring. She was beaming her very brightest smile at the Doctor and seemed quite pleased with herself. "I've always needed to see something. And I thought seeing it might cheer Blaine up too, since he's been really sad lately."

"All right. What?" The Doctor crossed his arms and waited, looking as confused as Blaine felt.

Impossibly, Brittany's smile got even brighter. "I need to go watch the original premiere of 'Sesame Street'."

Oh. Well. Of course she did.

Artwork by [MonkeyButton](http://monkeybutton.tumblr.com/post/35784293710/if-you-are-a-gleek-a-klainer-and-a-whovian-and)  



	2. I've Only Ever Met Extraordinary Humans

“Why are you sad?”

Blaine jumped as the gentle voice of the Doctor came out of nowhere over his shoulder. He’d been so fascinated watching Brittany talk earnestly to Caroll Spinney - who seemed completely unfazed by whatever she was saying, but then Blaine guessed anyone who spent that much time dressed as an eight foot tall bird of indeterminate origin didn’t really have any room to be fazed by anything - he hadn’t heard the strange pilot of the even stranger time machine walking up behind him. “What?”

“She said you were sad.” A nod indicated Brittany, who was hugging the half-costumed Big Bird like she did this kind of thing every day. Blaine admired her ability to never, ever be rattled by anything at all. How she decided she wanted something and just made it happen, no matter how insane it seemed. 

A pinch on his arm brought him back to reality with a sting. “Ow!”

“You. Sad. Why?” The Doctor was staring at him like he could read the answer on Blaine’s face, and who knew, maybe he could? It was 1969, they’d come to New York in a blue box, Brittany was talking to Big Bird, Blaine wasn’t about to discount the possibility of psychic phenomena  _now_. “Everything about you is sad. Never met anyone as sad as you. What’s going on?”

It’s been so long since anyone asked him that and seemed to really  _mean_  it that Blaine’s first instinct was to defer. “Nothing. I’m…I’m okay.”

“Nope. Had the TARDIS do a scan on both of you. Just to make sure you really were human. And you are, which was a relief.” A quick smile flashed across his face, making him look confusingly young again, maybe only a little older than Cooper, but then there was the solemnity of his 900 years claim back again and… “But you haven’t eaten or slept a sufficient amount by human standards in quite some time. I’m not very good at paying attention to these things usually but I’ve been alone and bored lately so my focus is sharp. Like a tack.” Another grin as he exaggerated the word  _tack_. “So, Blaine Anderson, Student Council President, why don’t you tell me what’s the matter?”

Blaine had to swallow down the sudden lump in his throat, the prickling of tears in his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so truly  _visible_ as a person, as  _himself_ , and the sensation was almost overwhelming. He didn’t know if he’d be able to talk…”Nothing. I’m fine. I just made a mistake, but it’s fine.”

“Loads of people make mistakes. They don’t all seem to take them as badly as you are.” The Doctor’s voice was gentle and knowing and implacable and everything Blaine hadn’t heard in weeks, months, years, and before he knew it he was explaining the whole mess in a rush - how Kurt wasn’t meant to be in Lima but they hadn’t realized how hard him being in New York and Blaine in Ohio was going to be until it was happening, and how Blaine hadn’t realized how isolated he was until he was alone with all of his thoughts and memories all the time and no one would let him  _talk_ , they just wanted who they thought he was and Kurt was gone and just so busy and it was  _stupid_ , just such a stupid mistake that never should have happened and he was so  _stupid_  and now everything was ruined and it was his own stupid fa - 

“Oh, whoa, whoa whoa -” The hand on his shoulder stopped Blaine in mid-sentence, but for once he didn’t feel bottled up and stifled by the interruption. In fact it was a relief to have the flow of words and pain dammed up this time, he’d let out  _too_  much, the Doctor looked completely shocked. “In all my years of seeing everything you could possibly dream existed, I’ve never, ever heard anyone call themselves stupid as much as you do.”

“Well.” Blaine couldn’t help but let a bitter laugh erupt out. “That’s because you’ve never met anyone as…as stupid and wrong and idiotic as I am until -“

“No, I promise you I’ve met some very stupid folk, Blaine. Truly I have. Oh, the stories I could tell!” He let out a laugh, just a short burst of mirth before settling down and shaking his head. “But you’re not one of them, oh no. I think you’re someone who’s done some very ill-thought out things, but I don’t think you’re stupid.” He leaned down and winked. “I think you’re extraordinary.”

Blaine shrugged and directed his gaze back to where Brittany was now clapping and dancing along with Cookie Monster. “You don’t know me.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re human. I’ve only ever met extraordinary humans. Got a knack for it.” Tilting his head to the side, the Doctor indicated Brittany again. “People call your friend stupid, don’t they?”

It had only been a few hours since they met, Blaine still wasn’t used to the rapid changes of topic. He felt his forehead creasing in a frown as he tried to follow. “Yeah…” 

“But you know she’s not.” 

“Of course she’s not. If she were, we wouldn’t be here,” Blaine scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I mean, I still don’t know how she built that telegraph thing but I don’t know of anyone else who would have even tried.” 

“She’s remarkable.” The Doctor was staring at Brittany now, too, smiling broadly at how she’d roped all of the Muppeteers into singing and dancing with her. “Never met another human being her age so completely uncrippled and unbound by skepticism. Her perspective is totally fresh and unsullied. She believes she can do anything, so she can.” He shook his head in admiration. “It’s an incredible thing. As incredible as your capacity for courage.”

“Oh, wait, oh, no.” Blaine flapped his hands and shook his head in violent disagreement. “I am  _not_  courageous by any means. I’m…I’m fearful and I run away and hide and -“

“Of course you’re courageous. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here.” The Doctor’s eyes twinkled with his conviction. “You followed Brittany through the doors of my TARDIS even though you had no way of knowing what it was.”

“Well, yeah, she’s my friend, I -“

“And you went to talk to this Kurt fellow about what you’d done even though you knew you’d lose him.”

“It was the right thing to do, I wasn’t going to lie to -“

“And you transferred schools for him even though you knew he’d left that exact school because he felt threatened, and you’ve been the victim of assault, but you did it anyway.”

The air felt sucked right out of Blaine’s lungs. “I didn’t tell you that.”

The Doctor winked again. “I’m nosy. I checked your records when I scanned you.”

Blaine felt his jaw drop. “You had no right -“

“You’re a stranger in my spaceship, I had every right.” Now his face is terrifying as he leans down again to stare directly into Blaine’s eyes, his gaze steady and never wavering, his mouth and jaw set. “I could take you back, you know. To the mistake. So you could undo it.”

It’s yet another  _non sequitur_ , but temptation rushed electric through Blaine’s veins at the thought, fully awakening his brain for the first time since Kurt left for New York. To be able to fix his awful horrible mistake, to undo the hurt he’d caused, to never reply to Eli on Facebook. Blaine had always wished he had the ability to go back in time and correct some of his more blindingly stupid moments. The Gap thing with Jeremiah. Running away from his tormentors. Waiting in that spot for Todd’s dad to pick them up. Asking Todd to Sadie Hawkins in the first place when he knew how the guys at his school would react.

Wait.

Except.

Sadie Hawkins, as horrible as it was, had led him to Dalton. Where he’d met Kurt. A good thing out of a bad thing. Had he not run, he wouldn’t have met Kurt. And the Gap thing, it was awful but it had given Kurt the nerve to call Blaine out on his half-assed flirting and put everything out on the table. Which had led to Blaine finally taking his heart in hand and giving it to Kurt just a few weeks later.

Without any of those awful things, would the good ones have happened?

If he undid his mistake with Eli, what would he miss out on? What if he undid the Eli thing and that just opened the door for something worse to happen? No. It’s a risk he can’t take. Maybe there’s a chance he could fix things with Kurt eventually now, if he took back what he did then it could be replaced with something irreparable. 

And even if he and Kurt can’t be fixed, there’s no way Blaine is taking even a single second of a chance that he could hurt Kurt even worse. Never. 

Slowly, he swallowed back the cold lump of disappointment and, knowing he was making the right decision for once, looked up at the Doctor and shook his head. “No. Thank you, but no. It would probably be an even bigger mistake and I won’t…I have to live with the consequences of what I did. Whatever happens.”

A slow smile rumpled up the Doctor’s face, and suddenly it was clear that whatever had just happened wasn’t a test, but if it had been, Blaine would have passed. “See? Remarkable courage. Just remarkable. Tell you what, Blaine Anderson, you remarkable, extraordinary human being,” he offers, slapping a hearty hand down on Blaine’s shoulder with a force that almost sent Blaine staggering right into Oscar’s trash can. “I’m going to let you really pick where we go next. Anywhere you want. Anywhen you want. You say the word and we’re there.”

Seriously, if mental whiplash was real, Blaine had it by now, or was going to have it, or… “No, Doctor, but I’m not, I’m just. I…” He didn’t know what to say.

“Yes, you are.” His smile got even bigger as he waved Brittany over. “And I’m going to keep proving it to you until you believe it. Miss Pierce!” He flung one long arm around each of their shoulders and started walking them out of the studio. “Mr. Anderson here is going to pick where we go next. Any objection to travelling through time and space for a while?”

“Nope.” Brittany’s ponytail bounced as she clapped her hands together in delight. “As long as we’re back home before Christmas. That’s tomorrow.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, your sense of your native time and place seems strong enough that we won’t get blown off course unless a future version of you fires off the Telegraph again.” He dropped a playful wink. “Try not to do that, hm? Mr. Anderson? Any ideas?”

It was too much. “How can you say I’m remarkable or courageous or extraordinary or  _any_  of that stuff?” Blaine blurted, shrugging off the Doctor’s arm and staring at them both. “You looked, you know everything I did!”

“I can say it because it’s true.” They rounded a street corner into an alley and arrived where the Doctor had parked the TARDIS. He fished his key out of his jacket pocket before turning to smile at Blaine again. “I’m the Doctor. You’ll learn to trust me because I’m always right. Now, come along and tell me where we’re going.”

 _You know what? Fine._  Blaine shook his head in exasperation. If the Doctor wanted recklessness masquerading as courage, Blaine Anderson would give it to him. “Okay. Sure. Take us somewhere amazing that no human’s ever been.”

The Doctor beamed as he ushered them into the time machine. “Absolutely fearless. I love it. I know just the place, let’s go.”

Artwork by [DinoJay](http://dinojay.tumblr.com/post/35612298449/so-basically-lissa-combined-three-of-my-favorite)  



	3. For As Long As We Want

“Hey, Brit?” Blaine pushed aside a rack of elaborate frock coats with a frown. All of time and space at his disposal and the Doctor didn’t have a single pair of plain old jeans in the Wardrobe Room? “Why’d you do this?”

“Because I needed to find a bag so we didn’t leave Lord Tubbington behind again,” Brittany replied as she shoved through several rails full of Victorian dresses, the porcine feline in question held tight in her arms. “He was really mad he didn’t get to meet Elmo, even though I told him Elmo is totally not vintage ‘Sesame Street’ and wasn’t even there.” 

“No, not…Brit.” He tripped over a long, multi-colored scarf in his haste to catch her before she disappeared behind an entire display of leggings straight out of 1986. “I meant this. All of this. The time machine. Why’d you summon a time machine on Christmas Eve?”

Her head poked out from behind a mannequin in a minidress, her face crestfallen. “You don’t like it?”

“No! I do!” Scrambling over a surprisingly large pile of elaborate hats, Blaine skidded to a stop next to his friend, squeezing her hand in reassurance. “It’s really cool, Brit. It’s uh…taking some adjusting. Serious, I-may-need-therapy-later adjusting. But it’s cool!”

“And you’re happy? Happier?” Her blue eyes were wide with concern and hope. “I mean. I heard you telling Sam that your parents were going to the Virgin Islands - do they let non virgins in there? - and you said you didn’t want to go and I know your brother’s working on that TV show you told me about, with the robot veterinarian. And I know you and Kurt are kind of talking but he’s staying in New York and…” Biting her lip, Brittany let her voice trail off before burying whatever her next words were into Lord Tubbington’s neck.

“Brit, I didn’t catch that.”

Lifting her head, Brittany took a deep breath. “I didn’t want you to feel like I did. I don’t like being sad. I mean, Christmas is my favorite holiday and I put up all the lights and I made popcorn strings and I got Lord Tubbington a new jingle bell collar but I’m still empty. Here.” She shifted the cat around until she could put a hand on her heart. “Because of Santana. And I know you are too, because of Kurt. And it hurts. And I just thought…maybe I could do something to put off waking up without Santana on Christmas. I figured you might want to put that off too. But with Kurt.”

Blaine almost couldn’t speak for the myriad emotions clogging up his chest and throat. How much it hurt to think of Kurt, and how much did he adore this impossible girl with the scatterbrain and huge heart? “Brit…”

“It can be Christmas Eve for as long as we want, Blaine Warbler.” She squeezed Lord Tubbington close, her eyes blinking fast and hard like she was holding back tears. She buried the sound of a tiny sniffle in his fur, and her next words were muffled. “We don’t have to go home ‘til we feel like we’re ready to face Christmas without them.”

Oh. Ouch. Blaine closed his eyes and took a deep breath before stepping forward and encircling both cat and girl in his arms, holding tight and listening to Lord Tubbington’s steady purring. “Brit?”

“Yeah?”

“This was the best idea in the universe.” He muffled his own sigh into Lord Tubbington’s shoulder. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Blaine Warbler.”

In the Console Room, the Doctor snapped off the intercom switch and stood with his hands braced on the control panel, a thoughtful, sad look on his young-old face.


	4. Should Have Taken That Left Turn At Albuquerque

“Blaine Warbler!”

Blaine leaped what felt like ten feet into the air, his heart in his throat as he spun to face the grinning Doctor. “You have got to stop sneaking up on me like that!”

“No I don’t, it’s my TARDIS, I could wander around wearing salad and a funny hat if I wanted to.” The Doctor collapsed down onto one of the Console Room’s benches in a tangle of giraffe-like limbs and a giant smile. He bobbed a nod in Blaine’s direction. “You look well.”

Self-consciousness made Blaine glance down at his flip-flop clad feet and toy with the towel around his neck. “I wish I’d known we were going to a beach, I would have asked you to stop by my house so I could pick up my own shorts.”

“I’m just glad there were any in the Wardrobe, don’t much do beaches around here, come to think.” With a yawn, the Doctor stretched and bounced to his feet. “Did Miss Pierce find anything?”

“Yes.” Brittany wandered in wearing a red bathing suit and a bright purple beach skirt, Lord Tubbington trotting along behind her – in a bright pink halter bikini. “You must have had a lot of girlfriends, Doctor.”

The Doctor’s eyes were as big as tea saucers as he took in the sight of the resigned, bikini-clad tabby. “I think that fits him better than it did Peri,” he mumbled, swiveling on his feet to throw a few switches and levers. “Right, we’re just about to land on Gabilatronus, planet made entirely of beaches! All summer year round and the only crooks are high class – stay out of the casinos. Oh, and if someone asks you to try the local specialty, say no.”

“Um, what’s the local specialty?” Blaine asked, bending down to pick up Lord Tubbington and situate him in Brittany’s backpack.

“Quail and hemlock  _vol au vent_. Gabilatronans experience a dizzying aphrodisiac high when they ingest hemlock. You…well, you know what you’ll experience.” Another series of lever twists and the TARDIS began to make the horrible wheezing noises that the Doctor had told them was perfectly normal. “And here we are!” He darted down the steps and over to the door, flinging it open with a flourish. “Geronimooooooooh dear me.”

Brittany craned her head around the Doctor’s right arm, a vaguely surprised expression of interest on her face. “Um…”

“Is that an elf?” Blaine poked his head out of the TARDIS door and blinked hard, several times, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “That is an elf. A dancing elf.”

“Technically speaking,” the Doctor began, backing up and pulling them away from the door, “I believe the natives here prefer the term Natiuitean.”

“What happened to the beach?” Brittany wondered, brushing melting snow out of her ponytail. “Or was that what you call a beach because you aliens just really don’t know what a real beach is?”

“I know what a real beach is,” snapped the Doctor as he yanked down the monitor over the Console and glared at the display.

“It’s okay to admit it when you’re wrong, Doctor,” was Brittany’s earnest reply, and Blaine pressed his lips together so tight to stifle his laughter at the Doctor’s affronted expression, they went numb.

“I  _do_  know what a beach is, Miss Pierce.” He swung the monitor around and jabbed an indignant finger at the image there. “This is a beach. Sand. Water. Sunshine. Lifeforms making questionable clothing choices.” And indeed, from what Blaine could see as he trotted up to squint at the monitor’s grainy display, that did seem to be exactly what was described, and it jived completely with what he and Brittany had expected in a way that the snow-covered Yuletide spectacle currently outside did  _not_.

Brittany eased her backpack down and helped Lord Tubbington back out, stepping forward to place him on one of the bench seats. “So…how come we’re not there, then? Is it a directions thing? ‘Cause I can go ask someone if you want, I know how guys are.”

“I do not need help with directions!” By now the Doctor was openly sulking, and the number of deep calming breaths Blaine was having to take to keep from collapsing to the floor with laughter was making his head spin. “This…it happens sometimes. TARDIS has a mind of her own, I’ll put in coordinates and she’ll tell me to…” Dipping his head, a scowl crossed his face as he flipped a switch that made the console light up. “…sod off. Basically.”

Brittany opened her mouth, but Blaine figured it might be best if he steered the conversation off to something less likely to get them abandoned in a snowy field in sandals and swimsuits. “Where are we, then, Doctor?” he asked, pulling his towel off and tossing it over a railing. “It uh…kind of looked like Christmas out there.”

“It was.” He didn’t look at either of them as he leaned back against the railing behind him. “We’re on the planet Natiuiteo. Which like Gabilatronus does experience a year-round weather phenomenon, albeit quite a different one. And the culture is vastly different.”

Blaine crossed his arms and waited for him to continue. From her perch on the bench seat, Brittany did the same while she extracted Lord Tubbington from the bikini. Seconds ticked past nearly audibly in the time machine, and the Doctor kept avoiding their patient gazes as he fiddled with about twenty different knobs, levers, and switches. Heaving a sigh, Blaine broke the silence. “If I’m putting two and two together, given what we just saw and the fact that Natiuiteo sounds kind of like ‘nativity’, I’m going to guess that you just brought us to an entire planet of Christmas.”

“Strictly speaking, the TARDIS brought you to an entire planet of Christmas,” corrected the Doctor, looking up at both of them with one eyebrow up and a mildly sheepish look on his face. “I actually did put in coordinates for Gabilatronus.”

“So what you’re saying is that sometimes your…your… _spaceship_ …this  _thing_ …sometimes goes off course?” Now things were considerably less funny. Putting his hands on his hips, Blaine tilted up his chin and tried to not let panic get the best of him. “Which means…what if you can’t get us home?”

“I can get you home!” the Doctor protested. “I can drop you right back where I found you…if the time is right…” His voice trailed off in a mumble, and didn’t help Blaine’s panic.

“What does  _that_  mean?” He knew his voice was tight with fear despite his best efforts. What if he never saw Kurt again? Or what if the Doctor got them back to Lima but at all the wrong time and they’d been missing for years and it was too late to fix anything? Scenarios whirled through Blaine’s mind, each more dire than the last.  _Oh, God, what if we get home and something’s happened to Brittany, Santana will kill me._ “Are you saying that if your  _spaceship_ decides that it’s not the right time to go home, we’re stuck with you? Are you insane?”

“Now you listen to me, Blaine Warbler -”

“And why are you suddenly calling me Blaine Wa -”

“Wait.”

Brittany’s interjection was quiet, but so loaded with wonder they couldn’t help but break off the impending argument and turn to stare at her. “Yes, Miss Pierce?” asked the Doctor, looking altogether relieved by the interruption.

She stood up, picking up Lord Tubbington and holding him tight to her chest, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks pink with excitement. “Did you say that planet out there is celebrating Christmas?”

A nod from the Doctor. “Yes. It’s actually their culture. They  _are_  Christmas, or, well, you would call it Christmas, anyway. They don’t, obviously. But essentially, you’ve got it.”

Brittany’s gaze bounced back and forth between the two men, comprehension dawning. “It’s really a Christmas planet? Like, an entire planet where it’s always Christmas?”

“Basically, yeah.” He looked rather embarrassed once again, ruffling a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I can try again to get us to Gabilatronus.”

“No  _way_.” She took off at a run, skidding out of the Console Room and only stopping once to yell, “Come on, Blaine, we’ve gotta find winter clothes for the Christmas planet!”

Stunned, Blaine could only gape after Brittany, trying to process what just happened. “I…”

“Better run along,” the Doctor advised with a smirk, strolling over to pat Blaine on the shoulder and appearing altogether too pleased with himself. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint the girl.”

Blaine took one more deep breath and glared. “I’m not done with you.”

The Doctor’s grin only got bigger. “Try not to wear anything too festive,” he replied innocently, giving Blaine a little shove to get him moving. “Wouldn’t want the native population to mistake you for one of their own, you  _are_  rather on the short side.”


	5. Chainsaws Are Primitive

There was no hair product on the TARDIS.   
  
Blaine stood frozen in the Wardrobe Room, a wool beanie in his hands. When they got back from exploring Natiuiteo, after being bundled in winter clothing all day, they were going to want showers. Hair would absolutely need to be washed after being under a warm wool hat for hours.   
  
Washed hair would then need to be tamed, but Blaine had no product with him. He hadn’t thought to snatch up his schoolbag when he’d chased after Brittany - he’d only been thinking to drag her back out of the blue box that had materialized in her basement. And Brittany had been holding only Lord Tubbington when she dashed in ahead of Blaine. So they were traveling through time and space without their holiday homework assignments (though the argument could be made, he realized, that they were living one), without their identification, without any money of any kind…without hair product.   
  
Blaine heaved a sigh. There wasn’t much he could do. Maybe live in hats until they got back home. Whenever that would be. He sighed again, made a conscious decision to stop worrying about that before he got an ulcer, and shoved the hat over his hair.   
  
“Are you ready?” Brittany skipped into the room, a vision of Christmas in red leggings, an oversized green sweater, heavy furry boots, a short white fuzzy coat and a pair of matching earmuffs. Lord Tubbington was back in the backpack slung over Brittany’s shoulders, jingle bell collar ringing cheerily in stark contrast to the deeply apathetic expression on his furry little face. “The Doctor says the Christmas people have ice sculpting contests twice a day, every day. I want to enter one.”  
  
As much as Blaine liked Brittany, the idea of her hacking away at a giant chunk of ice with a chainsaw was sincerely alarming. “Maybe they have a butter sculpting contest,” he offered hopefully as he tugged sheepskin lined boots of his own over his jeans. “I’ve seen you do amazing things on mashed potato day at school, and butter has kind of the same consistency as potatoes. Sort of.” And butter sculpting wouldn’t involve a chainsaw, so nothing horrible could happen to you and make Santana want to kill me, he added mentally, looping a long scarf around his neck and locating a heavy dark blue peacoat. “I really don’t want to risk you getting hurt so far from home. I mean, we don’t know what kind of Doctor the Doctor is, or if there’s healthcare out here…I’m pretty sure we’re out of network on your insurance.”  
  
Brittany pouted for a minute and rolled her eyes. “Fine, but, I totally know how to use a chainsaw and I really think you’re missing out, but it’s super nice of you to worry, so…yeah. Okay.” In the next minute she was bouncing with excitement, ponytail swinging. “So are you ready now?”  
  
“Yeah.” With a wink, Blaine tweaked her ponytail and took off towards the Console Room. “Race you!”

They arrived at the console in a skidding flurry of laughter, making the Doctor turn around and smile at their exuberance. “Excellent. Right! Now, here are the rules – forget the rules.”

Well, that wasn’t disturbing at all or anything. “Shouldn’t we worry about stepping on butterflies or something?” Blaine tugged at the zipper on his jacket, trying to remember all the bad sci-fi movies Coop used to make him watch. “That whole theory about -”

“There are no butterflies on Natiuiteo, but don’t poke the snow sloths.” The Doctor’s grin got bigger and a little more unnervingly manic. “Their claws are just about the only thing on this planet that aren’t festive at all. Off we go!”

* * *

“You see, what you know about Christmas is a myth.” His boots crunching in the snow as he spun to face Blaine, the Doctor flung his arms out in an expansive gesture that narrowly missed taking out two racks of exquisitely decorated pine and poinsettia wreaths. “That’s why there’s so many versions of it. Well, that and the natural passage of time distorting the informational flow.” He ducked just in time to miss a passing vendor with a tall stack of trays full of popcorn balls balanced in his hands. “It became too easy for the Natiuiteans to come back to Earth and drop off another little story or artifact. They think it’s fun.”

“So aliens really are screwing with Earth? That’s not just something Hollywood made up?” Blaine plucked a shiny ornament out of Lord Tubbington’s paws and handed it back to the affronted matron off of whose hat it had been pulled with an apologetic smile. “I can’t believe that.”

“No? You really can’t?” The idea seemed to astonish the Doctor. “You’re a clever boy, didn’t you ever wonder about all the alien autopsy videos – the Dalintarans are still quite proud of pulling that one off – or Republicans or even those funny commercials for free credit report websites?”

Well, he did  _now_.

That certainly put a whole lot of things that Cooper said into a whole new light that Blaine was really not comfortable contemplating.

In the next moment, the Doctor’s words startled Blaine back out of the mildly disturbed contemplative funk he’d fallen into. “Here we are, Miss Pierce, your block of ice awaits.” The Doctor bent in a deep bow and smiled at Brittany as he swept an arm toward a large enclosure full of big blocks of ice and little elves running around checking entry forms. With a giggle, Brittany hugged the Doctor, shoved the backpack full of Lord Tubbington into Blaine’s arms, and bounced off into the enclosure.

“No, wait -” Blaine tried to reach out an arm to stop her, but Lord Tubbington chose then to find the brass buttons on the wrists of his coat intriguing and sunk his claws and teeth in. “Owwww ow ow ow ow ow!”

“Here you go.” Adroitly avoiding all the sharp bits, the Doctor extracted Blaine and helped get the backpack onto his back, situating Lord Tubbington so he wasn’t tempted to bat at the pom pom atop Blaine’s hat. “What were you saying? No, wait, what?”

“You’re letting Brittany enter a…a…an interplanetary ice sculpture carving contest and we’re thousands of light years away from home!” Honestly, did he always have to be the only sane one in any given situation? It was tiring. “Aren’t you worried about her safety?”

“What? Worry about the girl who built a Temporal Telegraph?” The Doctor raised one reproachful eyebrow. “Nonsense, who better? Besides, it’s just a bit of fun, that’s what we’re here for.”

“But it’s dangerous,” Blaine pointed out, keeping one careful eye on Brittany where she was listening earnestly to one of the little elves, who seemed to be explaining the rules and having her fill out a form of her own. “We don’t know anything about medical care here.”

“Well, as you pointed out, it is an  _interplanetary_  ice sculpture carving contest, of course the care is excellent.” Craning his head around, the Doctor seemed to be looking for something. “Ah, there it is. State of the art medical pavilion.”

Still, Blaine worried. “I just am really nervous at the idea of her handling a chainsaw, well, I’m nervous about anyone with a chainsaw, her ex-girlfriend will kill me if anything happens to her while she’s using one -”

“Chainsaw?” The Doctor seemed deeply amused by the very thought. “Oh no, they don’t use chainsaws. How primitive.” He pointed at where one of the elfin judges was handing Brittany a device no larger than an ink pen. “Lasers, Mr. Anderson.”

Blaine wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.

But a bright blue streak of laser light, accompanied by a shouted apology, that took out the pom pom on top of his hat…well, that did help him along the way towards forming a more definitive opinion. A less than optimistic one.

The Doctor seemed to be stifling a laugh behind his twitching little smile. “Right. Come along, Blaine, let’s go sit in the spectactor section behind the laser proof glass and see how Miss Pierce acquits herself, shall we?”


	6. Trouble Always Follows Him

“You’re turning purple.”  
  
“Uh?” Blaine jumped at the nudge of the Doctor’s tweedy elbow in his ribs. A rush of blood from his head left him dizzy and made him realize he’d been holding his breath. “Oh.”  
  
“Oh is right. Relax!” The Doctor couldn’t seem to keep the proud grin off of his face as he gestured out to the ice sculpture carving grounds. “Brittany’s done really well, you should be proud. She still has all her fingers.”  
  
But Blaine couldn’t shake a terrible sense of foreboding. He’d learned to listen to the quiet, nagging little voice that would tell him when things weren’t quite right, because it was correct more often than not. He’d learned that the very hard way over the last several years.   
  
Unfortunately, they were on an alien planet. Thousands, millions of miles and probably an uncountable number of millennia away from home and everything they knew. So one, he couldn’t tell if his instincts were accurately predicting doom or were just in overdrive due to the weirdness of their entire situation. Two, if he wasn’t just overreacting, then they were screwed, because he couldn’t even begin to count the number of things that could go wrong, let alone figure out how to solve them!  
  
The Doctor cleared his throat and gazed expectantly at Blaine. Oh. Blaine snuggled Lord Tubbington up tighter against his chest. “Ah. Yeah. You’re right. She has done really well.”  
  
“But you’re still concerned.” A smile that was probably meant to be reassuring accompanied the Doctor’s companionable shoulder jostle. “Don’t be! We’re on a perpetual Christmas planet! You ought to relax, Blaine Warbler.”  
  
That reminded him. “And why are you even calling me that? How did you find out about that nickname? I can’t believe it’s in my records, it’s just something the other New Directions kids call me.”  
  
And just like that, the Doctor looked as uncomfortable as Blaine felt. “Well…”  
  
Blaine thought for a moment until a possibility occurred to him. “Were you spying on me and Brittany?” Jeez, could the man - alien - whatever! - keep his curious nose out of anything? “You have no shame!”  
  
“I was just trying to help!” the Doctor protested, looking distinctly sulky. “I thought if I listened in I might get an idea of something to do to make your Christmas nice. I’m the Doctor, I’m here to help, it’s what I do.”  
  
“Well, you could have, I don’t know, asked!” Blaine threw his hands into the air, only to bring them back down in a hurry when the cat-filled backpack on his lap began to tilt and Lord Tubbington began to yowl. Spectators around them were starting to glare. He dropped his voice down to a whisper. “You are…you are nosy and you meddle and how did I let you talk me into letting Brittany handle a laser?”  
  
The Doctor’s voice was just as low and his face just as set with irritation. “Miss Pierce is a big girl and I don’t believe in babysitting anyone who can bend the time vortex to her will. I told you, she can do anything she believes she can do.” He glanced over at the enclosure, where Brittany was bouncing up and down with a giant blue ribbon in her hands, a flawless ice sculpture of a duck next to her. “We’re going to have to continue this conversation later. She’s just won, better go fetch her so we can be off.”  
  
“So soon?” Blaine asked, now bewildered as he slung Lord Tubbington over his shoulders and scrambled after the rapidly departing Doctor. “We just got here…”  
  
“Well, I do hate to meddle,” snapped the Doctor over his shoulder. “I’ll just pop you two back when and where I found you and find someone who doesn’t mind touring the universe for Christmas.”  
  
Regret for his hasty words began to set in as Blaine imagined telling a disappointed Brittany that it couldn’t be Christmas Eve for as long as they wanted after all, and it was all his fault. “Doctor, I -“  
  
“Excuse me, coming through, we’re with Miss Pierce, coming through please!” Whipping a little black folder out of his pocket, the Doctor pushed through, flashing what seemed to be credentials at anyone who wanted to stop him. “We’re with that young lady, please, we need to be with her, excuse me.”  
  
They got to the enclosure just as Brittany was lining up to take pictures next to her impressive array of ice sculptures. “Where did she learn to carve a Sontaran?” the Doctor wondered, bending down to squint through his round reading glasses. “You sure she’s human?”  
  
“I never guaranteed that, but I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be Lord Tubbington,” Blaine mumbled, hitching the backpack up more comfortably over his shoulders. “Doctor, you didn’t really mean we were going to leave, did you?”

But the Doctor ignored him. “Ah! Hello!” He seemed to be greeting one of the taller elves, one in ornate red and silver robes and a little insignia badge that, when Blaine looked closely, appeared to resemble two enameled candy canes crossed over a treetop angel. They  _really_  took this Christmas thing seriously. “Chief Celebrant Elgar! Such a pleasure to see you again!”

“Doctor.” The elf nodded, its delicate face pinched into a wary stare, little nose in the air as it stared up at Blaine and the Doctor. “I suppose this young lady is with you?”

The Doctor beamed over at Brittany, who had just finished up being photographed and bounced over to loop her arm through Blaine’s. “She certainly is. Brittany Pierce, Blaine Anderson, meet the Elf in Chief of Natiuiteo, Elgar. He’s the second in command to the big man. Elgar, these are my companions.”

“This time,” the elf retorted sourly. “Hope they’re less destructive than that Captain you brought along last time. He tore quite the swath through the ladies of the market.” He paused, mouth twitching. “And the men. And Blitzen has never been the same.”

“Harmless fun, that’s all.” With a huge smile, the Doctor turned to Brittany and threw an arm around her shoulder. “Lovely work on the sculptures, my dear. Wish we could take home that one.” He pointed at one that, if Blaine squinted, strongly resembled the TARDIS. “Too bad I jettisoned the Ice Vault in that outside universe…ah well.” Reaching out, he took the hand of the imperious looking little elf. “Elgar, lovely to see you, but if you lot are done taking photos of Brittany, we’ll need to be off -”

“My apologies, Doctor,” Elgar replied, looking so not apologetic that the sirens of foreboding in Blaine’s mind got louder, and suddenly the Doctor looked very nervous. “ _He_  wants to see Miss Pierce.”

The Doctor’s nervous expression gave way to confusion, then comprehension. “Oh, no,” he groaned as a small army of elfin creatures armed with sharply pointed candy canes and shields painted like Christmas ornaments surrounded them. “Not again.”


	7. In The Hall Of The Yuletide King

In a string of unbelievable events, this one pretty much took the cake. Or Christmas fruitcake, rather, Blaine guessed.

“It looks just like the gingerbread castle my mom bought when I was little.” Brittany craned her head around to take in the dark brown walls of the halls they were being marched through, reflections of the glittering sugar trim and shiny red and green hard candy decorations gleaming in her wide blue eyes. “Can you eat the castle?”

  
“We discourage all attempts to do so,” Celebrant Elgar replied stiffly, batting the Doctor’s hand away from a protruding knob of frosting. “After all, this is a place of royal residence. It does not do to have tourists nibbling on the walls of the King’s home.”  
  
 _Of course not._ Blaine leaned up to whisper in the Doctor’s ear, his fingers clenching around the straps of the backpack slung over his shoulders. “We’re going to see a King? There’s a Christmas King?”

“No, there’s a Christmas Potato,” the Doctor snapped in exasperation, pushing back the sleeves of his tweed jacket. “Yes, there’s a Christmas King, of course there’s a Christmas King. We’re on an entire planet made of nothing but Christmas cheer, surrounded by an armed phalanx of elves, and you actually have to ask if there’s a Christmas King?”

“I’ve stopped believing in the concept of normality,” Blaine admitted with a shrug, reaching over his shoulder to scratch Lord Tubbington between the ears. “Questioning everything just seems more safe when you’re involved.”

“Oh, I can see this is going to get old very quickly.” With a burst of speed, the Doctor pushed up to where Elgar had led Brittany a bit ahead of the guards. “Elgar, old friend -”

“We’re not friends,” the Celebrant interrupted, his face looking more pinched than ever.

“Fine. Elgar, you nasty little troll, what are we doing? Why does Kringle want to see us?” He skipped ahead and around to cut off the group’s advance down the hall, making the guards raise their spears and surround him. “And _don’t_  tell me this is going to be a repeat of last time.”

The Celebrant remained silent. Frowning, the Doctor leaned down. “What are you doing, Elgar?”

“Not telling you this is going to be a repeat of last time,” replied Elgar calmly, a smirk twitching his lips upward. The Doctor closed his eyes and Blaine could almost swear he was  _growling_.

“Doctor?” It seemed a bad time to exercise his new philosophy of asking questions, but on the other hand, the look on the Doctor’s face made it seem like exactly the kind of thing that was needed right now. Blaine had a feeling that when the Doctor was making that face, things were probably not going well. He stepped up and grabbed Brittany’s hand just as a pair of heavy tinsel festooned doors ahead swung open.

“Doctor!” bellowed a living, breathing representation of the Father Christmas painted on the Anderson household heirloom Advent calendar, complete with flowing beard, fur trimmed robes, and holly wreath crown. Blaine felt his jaw drop open, but next to him, Brittany squealed in delight at the sight of an actual Santa Claus-like figure. A broad smile lit up the man’s face as he approached them, arms spread wide in welcome. “You’ve come back! And you’ve brought me a wife!”

“His Royal Highness, King Kringle,” Elgar announced, somewhat superfluously.

“My companions,” the Doctor returned, gesturing to the two of them. “Blaine Anderson and Brittany Pierce. Oh,” he added at the sound of a grumpy yowl from the backpack, “and Lord Tubbington.”

It took a lot to surprise Brittany. It really did. Blaine wished he had a camera for the look on her face as she stared at King Kringle, because he was pretty sure it was going to be another eighteen years before anyone else managed to put it there.

It was probably fairly similar to the expression on his, but happier, mostly because she, unlike Blaine, hadn’t yet caught that there was something wrong with what the King had said. Blaine shook his head, just once, sharply, to try and jostle something resembling sense into place. “Sorry, did you say wife?”

But Father Christmas – no, King Kringle – ignored him, was waving the guards aside and circling Brittany with an appraising look on his face. “Oh, yes,” he was saying, reaching out to tweak her ponytail. “This one will do nicely. Looks to be much less troublesome than the last one you brought me.”

Yeah, no, none of that sounded promising.

“Oh, hold on, I’ve never  _brought_  you a wife,” the Doctor protested, interposing himself between Brittany and the man who was evidently the single and seeking King of Christmas. “Rose wasn’t mine to give away nor yours to take. She wasn’t troublesome, it was her right to decline your proposal!”

“I wasn’t talking about her, I was talking about Captain Harkness, the fellow who offered himself in her stead,” corrected King Kringle with a frown. “And he most certainly  _was_  troublesome. Handsome as a devil but oh, yes, very troublesome. Comet and Cupid have been inconsolable ever since.”

If they got out of this increasingly puzzling mess, Blaine was going to demand to know who Captain Harkness was and why he had a fetish for reindeer.

“Strictly speaking, I didn’t bring Captain Harkness to you, either, he just…happened. Does that a lot.” The Doctor looked vaguely disturbed, but he shook his head and soldiered on. “Whatever! Told you, I’m not in the habit of bringing you spouses, Kringle.”

Blaine sniffed. Why did the room all of a sudden smell like a barn?

“You’ve changed your face.” Kringle was now peering at the Doctor closely, examining him head to toe. “Mind, I like this one much better than the leathery chap, or the pinstriped fellow but even so. You are bad news whenever you come to this planet, Doctor. I think you  _should_  make it a habit to bring me spouses to make up for all the messes you cause. You know I’ve been seeking a new Queen Kringle for centuries!”

In the backpack, Lord Tubbington began to sneeze and hiss simultaneously.

“Yes, quite, yet sorry, this one’s not up for grabs.” The Doctor began to back up and snatched at Brittany and Blaine’s arms. “Time to go, kids.”

A vague memory was stirring in the back of Blaine’s mind, memories fueled by the sudden increasing smell of…goat?

Awful memories, memories of nightmarish tales Cooper would tell him as he was trying to go to sleep waiting for Santa Claus to come…stories of a horrible goatlike figure that smelled of sulfur and farmyards, with long curved horns and cold rattling chains…Blaine inhaled deeply of the strong, sour scent as his mind raced, trying to place the smell and the memory, to put a name to his fear -

“Krampus!” King Kringle’s voice was altogether too cheerful for the act of naming a creature of nightmares. Blaine and Brittany spun in place to face a seven foot tall demonic goat with glowing eyes and a mouth that dripped with foamy slaver. Heart in throat, Blaine grabbed Brittany and held tight as she began to scream.

The King stepped forward. “Thank you for coming, old friend. If you’ll please seize the Doctor and his young male companion here?” His kindly face crumpled into a stony glare. “Leave the girl.”

“Now see here,” the Doctor began, grabbing at Blaine and Brittany again and glancing around, seemingly in search of an exit strategy. “I’ve told you, Kringle, I’m not in the business of bringing you wives.”

“Yes, you have made that point rather tiresomely clear,” sighed King Kringle, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “And so I’ve decided I’ll just have this one anyway. Guards! Krampus!  _Seize those men!_ ”

 _Well,_  Blaine thought, holding on to Brittany until Krampus had seized him by the arms and ripped him away while the elfin guards herded her, shrieking, into the distant throne room with King Kringle,  _this just beat Cooper spiking the egg nog with ipecac for worst Christmas ever._


	8. They Never Check The Pockets

Blaine wondered how long it would take to go crazy. He’d been about halfway there even before they set foot on the TARDIS, now he was in a small but exquisitely decorated cell with a pacing alien who kept talking to himself and making absolutely no sense at all.

“Well. This is a pretty pickle.” The Doctor frowned and paused in his incessant pacing of their tiny prison cell to pick at the miniature Christmas tree standing in the corner. “No. Wait. Pickles aren’t pretty at all. Whose idea was that?”

  
“I really couldn’t tell you,” Blaine replied with a sigh, knowing he was being a little rude but unable to help it in his worry about Brittany. Besides, it wasn’t like the Doctor was actually paying attention to anything he was saying or doing. Shaking his head, Blaine abandoned his examination of the cell door lock and moved to lean against the wall, hands in pockets as he watched the strange time traveler resume pacing. “You don’t have any ideas for how we’re getting out?”  
  
“Oh, plenty of those. All contingent on how many pieces you want to be in when all is said and done.” He drummed his fingers on his chin and then collapsed onto the bottom bunk bed in a tangle of limbs. “Haven’t worked out the plan for all in one piece. Yet. I’m down to three each and minimal screaming. It’s not ideal.”  
  
Blaine considered the irony of wanting to be able to travel back in time to undo the fact that he had traveled in time. Huh. That was starting to cause less of a headache than it had been, so that was good. He slid down to the floor and scratched Lord Tubbington between the ears, working to keep from freaking out. What he wanted to be doing was clutching the bars of the cell and shouting to be let out, but he’d seen enough bad action movies with Cooper to know that was fruitless.   
  
God, he hoped the Doctor could come up with something. Blaine’s skills lent themselves more to breaking  _into_  places than out, and at least he’d known Dalton Academy.   
  
“Let’s talk about you,” came the lazy command from the bed, making Blaine jerk his head up and stare. “Resuming our conversation from earlier by the simple expedient of redirecting it, why are you so tense all of the time? Most people travel time and space with a sense of wonder but you’re so…grumpy.”  
  
“I’m not grumpy, and my concerns were legitimate,” Blaine pointed out. “And shouldn’t we be trying to get out?”  
  
“I’m multitasking. Humor me,” came the breezy reply. “You don’t want Brittany to have fun, you don’t care where we go as long as we’re home by Christmas…you’re just enduring this trip. Honestly, it’s a bit hurtful. Insulting, even.”  
  
Blaine gaped. “What are you, twelve?”

“Not as such, not in a very long time. If ever, difficult to remember.” With a lurch, the Doctor sat up. “Thing is, Blaine Warbler Anderson, I know a bit about losing people. I know a lot about being alone for too long. Makes you go all wibbly. Do terrible things. As you well know.”

Oh, that was a punch to the gut. “No, I didn’t mean – I told you -”

“Blaine, Blaine, Blaine. If there’s one person you don’t have to explain yourself to, it’s me.” He winked. “Daresay I could explain you better than you could explain yourself. But that’s not the point!” Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, the Doctor hunched over, resting his forearms on his knees and keeping a steady gaze on Blaine, who felt like he couldn’t move. “What’s so important about Christmas that you need to be home for it, when you won’t be seeing Kurt?”

“We were still going to talk. I promised him I’d call him. I’m just…” He sighed and wrapped his arms around himself, drawing in tight and not looking at the Doctor. “Brittany wants it to be Christmas Eve for as long as she wants, and I want her to have that. But I’m counting down the minutes until I can talk to Kurt. And now I don’t even know how many minutes there are between then and now. It’s…it’s just hard. We were supposed to have so many Christmases together, but because I screwed up all I’ll get is this one stupid phone call. Except maybe not even that now because we’re trapped in here.”

Blaine swallowed, knowing he looked and sounded pathetic but he couldn’t help it. He could help crying, though, and he bumped his head back against the wall, closing his eyes and breathing in deep, trying to calm down. No Brittany. No Kurt. Just a tiny little cell with a tiny little Christmas tree and strings of twinkle lights festooning the walls.

He felt a little bit closer to crazy now.

“Blaine.”

“What?” He didn’t open his eyes, still not entirely sure he wouldn’t cry.

“You know,” the Doctor began conversationally, “I could have dumped you and Brittany right back off where I found you. ‘Snot that hard, you’d have dragged her right back off the TARDIS given half a chance. But I took you along. Took you to see those Buppets -”

“Muppets,” Blaine corrected automatically, wondering where this was going.

“Right, right, Tuppets. So I took you there, why d’you think that is?” When Blaine opened his eyes, he met those of the Doctor, his gaze even more piercing now, watchful, not moving.

The sigh that came out of Blaine felt like it had started beneath his feet and traveled up as slow as molasses and studded with granite. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on, I just said it. No one ever listens.” But the chiding words were softened with a lopsided smile. “Loneliness. Takes one to know one, you know. I know one. And Brittany knows one. A girl doesn’t build a Temporal Telegraph just for fun, not even an extraordinary girl like her. No, she wanted to get away. And she wanted to take  _you_  with her.”

Blaine thought back to what Brittany had said in the Wardrobe. “Well, yeah…”

“A girl like her who does anything she believes she can, she could have chosen anyone to go with her, but she picked you, because she knows that an extraordinary experience has to be shared with an extraordinary companion.” The Doctor got to his feet and paced over to crouch down and peer into Blaine’s eyes. “She believes you are. I bet Kurt does too. But you don’t. That’s fine, that’s where I come in. Didn’t I say I was going to tell you that you were extraordinary until you believed it?”

Everything was moving too fast and he understood none of it. “Well, yeah,” he said again, leaning back away from the Doctor, who just grinned and tapped him on the nose.

“Pass me that cat, will you?” He fished in his inside jacket pocket, pulling out a strange wandlike device whose end glowed oddly green with the press of a button that sent an odd whirring sound throughout the cell. “Ah, they never check the pockets. Cat, now, quickly.”

Blaine picked Lord Tubbington up and held him protectively away from the Doctor. “What are you going to do?”

“Told you I was multitasking. I’m getting us out of here and you’re going to get your phone call.” The whirring sound filled the chamber as he touched his wand thing to Lord Tubbington’s jingle bell collar, making it glow. “There. Magnetized it. Now…the instructions.” He pressed his fingers to the cat’s head and looked deep into his big green eyes. “Right, Lord Tubbington, I’m going to need you to go get the keys when I give you the signal. They’re attached to the robot guards. D’you see?”

To Blaine’s amazement, Lord Tubbington meowed and bobbed his head in what  _looked_  like a nod but could  _not_  be a nod because he was a  _cat_  and cats did not understand humans. Right?

But in the next instant sharp fangs were sinking into his wrist and Blaine howled in pain as he set Lord Tubbington back down on the floor. Lord Tubbington, who sat back on his haunches and watched the Doctor looking for all the world as if he really were waiting for instructions.

Blaine considered, and Blaine sighed, and Blaine looked at the Doctor and said, “Oh, hell. We’re on an entire planet of Christmas, nothing should be surprising me anymore, right?”

“Exactly.” The Doctor grinned and flipped his odd device end over end in his hand. “They’ve locked me in here with my brain, your courage, and a cat. We’re going to be just fine, Blaine Anderson, are you ready to find out why?”

Blaine sucked in a deep breath and puffed it back out. He really had no choice but to just go with it. “As I’ll ever be.”

“That’s my boy.” Another wink, another tap on the nose. “So. What sort of talent for distraction might you possess?”

And now it was Blaine’s turn to grin as crazy hope spread through his entire body. “You know, I think I might be able to do something. How sturdy do you think that bed is?”


	9. Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, The Sonic Won't Do Wood

“Right. Do you understand the plan?”

Blinking, Blaine shook his head. “Not at all.”

“Well, it’s fine. It’s all fine. You do your part and Lord Tubbington and I will take care of the rest.” Flipping what he’d told Blaine was a ‘sonic screwdriver’ over and over in his hand, the Doctor sidled up to the cell door, smiling at the robot guards with what Blaine assumed was supposed to be something akin to innocence all over his face.

“Yeah, I really don’t understand what the cat -”

“Just sing, Blaine.”

Right. Blaine took a deep breath. “Rockin’ around the Christmas tree, at the Christmas party hop,” he belted out, plastering his best stage grin on his face and watching the robot guards tilt their mechanical heads up to watch him. “Mistletoe hung where you can see, every couple tries to stop!”

He’d sung this number at Kings’ Island for the last four Christmases, knew every step and lyric by heart, so it was easy to keep an eye on the guards and perform on autopilot. Thank goodness, because wondering if they were going to ventilate him with their gleaming silver laser guns was pretty damn unnerving.

The fat holly berry clusters painted on the barrels were a nice, if slightly macabre, touch.

As the robot guards watched him, evidently confused and unable to locate anything in their protocol banks telling them what to do about a singing, dancing teenage boy, Lord Tubbington slipped past the Doctor’s legs and squeezed through the cell bars, jingle bells softly ringing with a cheery brightness that belied the seriousness of their situation. He padded out to sit behind the guards, looking up at them with an almost curious expression on his furry little face.

This was where Blaine had to kick it into overdrive. To distract the guards so they didn’t notice when a twenty pound cat rubbed against their ankles with his strongly magnetized collar, taking out the circuits in their legs so they couldn’t pursue the Doctor and Blaine when they got out of the cell.

Blaine tried not to remember that immobilizing their legs left their arms – and guns – still functional. The Doctor  _had_  to have a plan for that. “You will get a sentimental feeling, when you hear…” Lord Tubbington butted his head and collar against the first robot’s shins. Blaine ran to the table by the bunk bed and leaped up on it, a knee slide bringing him to poke his face between the cell bars and smile into the nearest guard’s terrifying and impassive metal face. “Voices calling, let’s be jolly – deck! The halls with boughs of holly!”

“Keys, keys, keys,” muttered the Doctor, holding his screwdriver at his side. Blaine took a breath and kept going while Lord Tubbington took out the second robot’s leg drives and then crouched behind it, wiggling his rump and tail like he was about to  _jump_ , which was  _insane_  because he weighed as much as a small child and he’d never get back into the cell before the robots noticed him yanking the keys off of their waist clips.

Oh, jeez, Brittany would never forgive him if he got her cat killed.

“Rockin’ around the Christmas tree, have a happy holiday,” he sang on, watching incredulously as Lord Tubbington hopped up just close enough for his magnetized collar to attract the keys and pull them off the clip at the robot’s waist. The cat winced and let out a noisy meow as they thudded to attach themselves to his collar with a painful sounding thump. The robots bent down to see what was going on as he bolted back to the cell, squeezing through the bars and making a beeline for the Doctor.

But the Doctor was occupied – the robots leaning down had put them in his direct line of access, and one after another he pointed his screwdriver at them and let its high pitched whirring fill the hall and cell, making their electronic eyes light up and pop as their circuits overloaded and burned out. It was a matter of seconds before both androids crumpled to the floor in a screeching pile of metal.

Swift as lightning, the Doctor demagnetized Lord Tubbington’s collar and yanked the keys off. “Go to Blaine,” he ordered, straightening up to start testing keys in the lock. Obediently, the cat zipped over to where Blaine was climbing down off of the table and he stretched up to sink his claws into Blaine’s leg, howling urgently.

“Aaaaaargh I’m on it, I’m on it, ow, let  _go_ …” Blaine leaned down and plucked the claws out of his knee, scooping up Lord Tubbington and racing to dump him into the backpack. “Oh, now is not the time to fight me on this!”

“Hurry, Blaine, we’ve got to get to the throne room before more guards are alerted.” The Doctor had found the right key and was standing anxiously in the open doorway of the cell. “Not much time now, and we’ve got to get to Brittany.”

Wrestling the backpack drawstring to cinch securely around Lord Tubbington’s torso, Blaine shrugged into his jacket and heaved the pack on. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

They took off at a run, the Doctor with his screwdriver out and taking out any guards they came across. Blaine wished he had something, anything besides a cat and his boxing skills. It was pretty impressive watching automatons fall over just from a sonic blast. Actually, that made him wonder - “Hey! You’re disabling the guards with that. Why couldn’t you use it to unlock the cell door?”

“Deadlocked! Wouldn’t sonic.” Another android fell. “It doesn’t work on deadlocks or wood. You’d better thank your lucky stars we weren’t trapped in the toy factory.”

They bolted down the hall, Blaine following the Doctor’s longer legged strides with difficulty - even with working out and dancing as much as he did, he couldn’t be expected to keep up very well with twenty pounds of angry feline strapped to his back. Still, the thought of Brittany in danger spurred him on and he put on an extra burst of speed to catch up. “You remember the way back to the throne room?”  
  
“I remember everything…and I may have been imprisoned here before,” the Doctor panted, aiming his sonic screwdriver at an approaching robot guard and zapping it, making the automaton collapse to the ground in front of Blaine. “I should probably stop coming here, really.”  
  
Blaine leaped over the fallen robot. “Oh, you think?” He caught himself as he stumbled, repressing a yelp of pain as Lord Tubbington swatted his ear. “You know those who never learn from history are doomed to repeat it, right?”

He was surprised when the Doctor spun around and waggled an admonishing finger in his face. “I’m letting that slide because I like you, Blaine Anderson. I like a man who appreciates a bowtie. But that’s a very rude thing to say to a Time Lord.” Spinning back around, he lurched back off. “Come on! Throne room’s this way, almost there, let’s get Brittany and go!”

Huffing and trying to ignore the stitch in his side, Blaine hitched the backpack more comfortably on his shoulders and set off, following the Doctor around the corner into the large, twinkling hallway they’d been in when the Natiuiteans had separated them all. Spotting the big doors at the end and knowing his friend was behind them gave Blaine a last burst of energy, and he caught up to the Doctor – who had stopped in the hallway and flung his arm out, and only a nimble twist prevented Blaine from getting himself clotheslined. “Do you hear that?” the Doctor asked, frowning and directing his screwdriver down the hall as if scanning.

Blaine listened. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly. That can’t be good.” Still frowning, the Doctor began to pace slowly forward, holding his arm out so that Blaine was forced to stay behind him. “No guards on the door. Something must have happened in there.”

“Oh, God.” Blaine swallowed hard and tried not to imagine the slow death by disemboweling he was sure to suffer at Santana’s hands. If he made it home. “Do you think she’s okay?”

“Let’s hope so. Right.” With a deep breath, the Doctor shook his head. “On three, we burst through those doors. One…two… _go!_ ”

They hit the doors at a dead run, skidding in across the smooth marble floor for several feet before they were able to stop. And once they did, it was several more moments before they could believe what they were seeing.

All across the gleaming expanse of white marble were scattered unconscious elves and robot guards, their weapons all around them. In a distant corner, King Kringle and Krampus were sitting back to back, slumped over and tied together with shiny golden tinsel and bright lengths of multicolored twinkle lights. Christmas trees smoldered in stands around the perimeter of the room, and the garland-festooned peppermint stick columns were splotched with what looked like scorch marks.

At the far end of the room, on a high dais standing at the end of a long stretch of red carpet, Brittany sat sprawled out across the sparkling silver and white throne, booted legs thrown over one arm of the elegant seat as she lazily licked at one of the sharpened candy cane spears that the elf guards had carried. She was wrapped in Kringle’s velvety green fur trimmed robe, his floppy cap askew over her blonde waves and looking for all the world like a picture of a Christmas moppet in a Victorian storybook. When she spotted Blaine and the Doctor, a smile lit up her face and she scrambled to her feet, throwing the candy spear aside and barrelling down the carpet to bowl them over in hugs. “You’re okay!”

“Brittany!” Blaine squeezed her as tight as he could, never wanting her out of his sight again. “What happened? Are you all right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Her grin was sunshine brilliant as she pulled the tiny laser gun from the ice sculpting contest out of her pocket. “Look! They never took it back. And would you even believe no one on this planet has ever seen ‘Home Alone’?”

The Doctor’s boisterous laugh of triumph rocked the room. “Magnificent! Oh, Brittany S. Pierce, you are a singular girl indeed.” He caught them both up by the hands and started to drag them out. “Back to the TARDIS! We’ve got to get off this planet.”

“Oh, no, more running…” But looking back over his shoulder, Blaine saw some of the elves sitting up, shaking their heads and blinking themselves back into alertness. “Never mind. Great! Running. I really like running, let’s get the hell out of here.”

“I couldn’t agree more. The TARDIS shouldn’t be far, think I left her parked around a corner outside.” Cautiously, the Doctor peered out of the throne room doors. “That’s the coast clear, let’s move! Blaine, be thinking of somewhere nice and fun to go and I’ll try to not get anyone kidnapped or otherwise endangered this time.” He flashed a grin over his shoulder. “Mind you, that’s not a promise.”

Well,of course it wasn’t.


	10. As Free As The Wind, Hopefully Learning

“There has to be some place you want to go.”

At the sound of the Doctor’s gentle inquiry, Blaine glanced up from his silent phone; he’d been staring at it for twenty minutes as the TARDIS lazily orbited through a place the Doctor had identified as the Malissecian Nebula. Brittany, still wrapped in King Kringle’s robes of state, was sitting in the open doorway, gazing out into the cosmos with Lord Tubbington curled up at her side, munching on Natiuitean sugar biscuits and kicking her sock-clad feet at the stars.

She’d adapted so easily to this, and Blaine just desperately wanted his phone to ring or to be able to call out. But the little signal indicator was blank, and he had no idea if they were anywhere near the 21st Century anyway.

“Blaine?”

Blaine shook himself out of his gloomy thoughts and glanced at the Doctor again. “Yeah. Sorry?”

“You do want to go somewhere, don’t you?” A crooked smile tipped up the Doctor’s mouth. “And don’t say home. Not yet, I don’t think Brittany is ready to go and besides, I want to give you an adventure.”

“We just  _had_  an adventure.” Blaine gestured at Brittany. “Killer Christmas, or did you forget?”

“Wrong kind of adventure.” The Doctor shook his head as he flopped down on the bench seat next to Blaine and kicked his feet up to rest on the railing. “I mean, certainly I thought it was fun, but I didn’t really get the same impression from you…?”

Blaine switched his phone back on, trailing his thumb down the wallpaper image of Kurt in his tuxedo. His unsuccessful campaign for senior class president. Last year seemed so far away. Well. It probably was. Millennia away. He sighed. “It was kind of weird.”

“Well, we can go somewhere fun! Anywhere you want. Any time you want.” Smiling, the Doctor patted Blaine’s knee, and he seemed to be searching Blaine’s face for clues. There was a worry and even a little hurt lurking behind his ancient eyes, a little too much reassurance in his smile. “I promise to have you home in time for Christmas.”

“It’s not even that. I just…” Blaine swallowed and took a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh that almost hurt. “I can’t think of anything else but wanting to talk to Kurt, but, well.” Lifting his phone, he showed the Doctor the screen. “No signal. We could have died back there, Doctor. Anything could have gone wrong and I wouldn’t have gotten to say goodbye, hear his voice one last time…” His blood ran so cold at the thought. “No matter what happened between us, he’s still who I love. I can’t even think of going anywhere else. Not if I can’t talk to him first.”

With a shrug, the Doctor reached over and plucked the iPhone away out of Blaine’s hand. “Well, that’s easily sorted.” He pulled his screwdriver out of his jacket pocket and aimed it at the glass screen, switching it on so that the green glow of it reflected off the phone and bathed his face in the pale light.

Blaine felt the blood drain out of his own face. “What are you doing?” he yelped, trying to get the phone back even as the screwdriver began its high pitched whirring. “Stop it!”

“And…there.” A last flourish and the Doctor pulled the screwdriver back, handing the phone to Blaine. “Go on, then. Call him.”

“But how? There’s no…” But there was a suddenly full range of signal bars, and a tiny little icon of the TARDIS next to them where the Verizon logo normally was. “…signal.”

“That phone will now call anywhere, any time, no matter where you are.” A frown drew lines across the Doctor’s forehead. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to not use that phone after I drop you off, though. Unless there’s an emergency and you need to reach me for any reason. Just…difficult to explain if someone happens to borrow your phone and accidentally call the Judoon.”

Astonished, Blaine flipped through his phone’s contact list, feeling his eyes stretching wide at the array of new names. “I can actually call – what is this? The Shadow Proclamation? What’s the Shadow Proclamation?”

“Ah. You know, I’d better just…” Once again, Blaine found the phone plucked away and the Doctor punched at the screen for a few moments, deleting numbers. “There. Better. I can’t seem to fine tune the data transfer to just upgrade the phones without dumping in my entire phone book. But there. It’s down to your contacts and then me. If you need me, that is.”

Sure enough, there was a new listing for ‘TARDIS’ right above ‘Tina’ in his phone. “This will really reach you.”

“Yup. Just like I said, no matter where you are. No one ever really leaves the TARDIS.” The Doctor seemed quite pleased with himself for a moment before fleeting sadness whispered across his face. “Well…strictly speaking…anyway! Give your young fellow a call. Have a chat, and then we’ll go somewhere. Agreed?”

Blaine felt the biggest smile in the universe stretching across his face. “Agreed.”

* * *

“Hey.”

“Hey.” It was a hard fight to keep back the urge to tell Kurt how much he loved him right off the bat. Oh, but how he wanted to at the sound of the most welcome voice in the world. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” It was almost as if Blaine could see the smile he heard in Kurt’s voice. “Are you at home?”

Blaine looked around at the portholed walls of the TARDIS, through the grid of the Console Room flooring over his head, at the pumping glass piston of the Time Engine, at the Doctor aimlessly wandering around the console itself, flipping levers and switches. “Yes?”

“You should go somewhere. It sucks that your parents decided to go to Tahiti.” Kurt’s sigh of sympathy wasn’t as good as a hug, but it was nice all the same. “You should have gone with them.”

“No thanks. If you’ve seen one Christmas in Tahiti, you’ve seen them all. Besides, when they got the tickets, you were still thinking you’d be able to come back to Ohio to visit.” Oof, he hadn’t meant to remind…oh, how they were still fumbling with trying so hard to understand. How had their communication gone so wrong? Or had it ever been right to begin with? “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I know you have to save money for NYADA, you know I’m happy for-”

“No, I know, Blaine. It’s okay.” But there was a tightness again in Kurt’s voice, a struggle to not snap. In the next instant it was gone, replaced with a light tone that Blaine knew was still a little forced. “Are you having an okay Christmas anyway?”

“Yeah, it’s…I’m with Brittany.” That much was true. “We’re just sort of hanging out. Stargazing.” Still true. Technically.

Kurt laughed, and the forced sound was gone this time. “Stargazing? Since when are either of you into astronomy?”

Blaine’s gaze was drawn to the open door above his head, Brittany’s shadow outlined against a giant rose-pink moon surrounded by the sparkling dusting of a thousand unfamiliar stars. “It’s recent.”

“Wow.” Amusement and awe laced Kurt’s reply. “You guys must have had to drive way out to get a clear enough sky for that.”

 _You could say that._ Blaine bit back a snort of laughter. “Yeah…hey, how’s your Christmas Eve going?”

“Rachel’s out with Brody, I’m still at the office going through photos of the holiday party from yesterday to see which ones are going to be suitable for going up on the company intranet.” A disapproving hum. “Not that one. Oh, Chase. Told you not to drink five cups of Isabelle’s Special Punch. She got the recipe from Robert Downey Jr., for god’s sake. How  _did_  you get those antlers there?”

“Kurt…” Always with the distraction of his new life. Blaine tried not to let it get to him.

“Right. I’m here. I’m sorry, Blaine.” And he did sound contrite. Blaine heard the sound of papers being pushed aside and a chair rolling back from a desk. “It’s not going to be the best Christmas I ever spent, but it also won’t be the worst, so I’ll survive. Maybe I can get home for spring break? Or a weekend. I don’t know how packed the spring semester is going to be…”

“Whenever you can. It’s okay.” Much to his surprise, Blaine realized he meant it. It wasn’t  _great_ , but it was okay. He was out in space, traveling through time, fighting Christmas Androids - suddenly the idea of having a ‘mature heart to heart’ with Kurt seemed…not less important, but less pressing. It wasn’t the only huge thing weighing on his mind anymore, as if all the crazy things that had been going on lifted it away and held it supported. Like suddenly he had his own life that was just as big as Kurt’s, and just as distracting.

Huh. Maybe this insane idea of Brittany’s did have merit after all.

“It’s okay,” he repeated, smiling. He was in space, talking to Kurt. It was pretty good, actually. “It’ll happen when it happens. You need to concentrate on school. Me too. Get my college applications and stuff in order. We’ll see each other when we can. It’s fine.”

“You’re always on my mind,” Kurt admitted with care. “I mean. Just so you know. I honestly do think about you a lot.”

“I think about you too.”  _All the time._ “We’re still friends. It would be weird if we didn’t.”

“Yeah.” A warm chuckle. “But seriously. I was in Starbucks the other day and they were playing ‘More Than This’. The original, not the cover. Roxy Music. I couldn’t help but think of you.”

 _Oh._ “That’s…that’s great to know, Kurt.”

“It makes me smile.” It sounded like he really was smiling, too. But then Kurt sighed. “I need to finish with these photos if I want to get home before midnight, though. I’m sorry.”

A tap over his head made Blaine look up to see the Doctor and Brittany grinning through the metal gridwork at him. Brittany waved. “It’s okay. Brit and I should go…she says hi, by the way.”

“Give her a hug for me. And go do something more fun than hanging out stargazing, okay? It’s Christmas.” Kurt hesitated. “We’ll talk again later?”

“Yeah.” The thought made him smile again. “Yeah. We will.” Swiping the phone off, Blaine sighed and took a second to gather his thoughts. Talking to Kurt had been exactly what he needed to help him remember that life wasn’t always insane. There was always something to keep him grounded and ready to face whatever was thrown at him.

There was always, no matter whether or not they were together, Kurt. There was more than this, as it were. Blaine let out a little chuckle as the words brought to mind the song that made Kurt think of him.

Then his memory stirred at the impromptu Roxy reference, digging up a distant memory of a happier time.

_Roxy Music makes me want to build a time machine, just so I can go back to the 70’s and give Bryan Ferry a high five._

Oh.

_Go do something more fun than hanging out stargazing, okay? It’s Christmas._

Right.

_There has to be some place you want to go._

There was, actually.

“Okay,” he called up to the Console Room, grinning back at his traveling companions. “I’m ready to go now.”

Brittany got down on her knees and poked her fingers through the gridwork, wiggling them playfully. “Did you pick somewhere?”

“Yeah.”  _I couldn’t help but think of you…_ “I have an idea.”


	11. High Fives Weren't Invented Until 1977 But Other Than That...

“I think I’ve changed my mind,” Blaine announced to his reflection in the Wardrobe Room mirror, shaking his head as he finished buttoning the dark brown polyester button-down he’d tucked into wide-belted burgundy bell bottoms. “I look completely terrible.”

“Nonsense. You look fine. And we’ll only be there for a few hours.” Emerging from behind a rack of coats, the Doctor was buttoning his sleeve cuffs and adjusting his bowtie. He wasn’t even looking at Blaine. “It’s important to blend in.”

“You’re not,” Blaine pointed out, patting in vain at his hair. His kingdom for some hair gel. Sigh. “You still look like a professor from a documentary on The History Channel, you won’t blend in.”

“I don’t have to. I’m the Doctor. 900 years, I get to wear what I want. Ah, Miss Pierce. You look lovely.” Beaming, the Doctor spun around and spread his arms out to greet. Brittany, who had located a floral print mini-dress in startling shades of bright aqua and lime green and layered it over white tights and a turtleneck against the chill they’d be encountering when they left the TARDIS to enter the October night ahead in Leeds. “Very appropriate.”

She brushed a hand down the big curl of her low side ponytail, and Blaine had to admit she really did look exactly like a model out of one of Kurt’s vintage Vogue magazines, down to the chunky black square toed pumps on her feet. In contrast, Blaine had just discovered that while he looked just as great in early 70’s casual as he had in his disco gear from Glee club, his hair was as hopeless as he’d thought it would be when he realized he had no gel. “I can’t meet Bryan Ferry with this hair, oh, god.”

Brittany looked up from where she was brushing stray Lord Tubbington hair off of her shoulder, eyes wide with wonder. “Oh! I almost forgot.” She trotted towards Blaine, digging in her dress pocket. When she pulled her hand out, a tiny silver tin lay on her palm, sparkling with microscopic green and red glitter that formed letters in a language that Blaine couldn’t read until he squinted and concentrated, letting the TARDIS translation matrix kick in.

_Festive Royal Hair and Beard Tamer_

Blaine blinked. “You stole Santa Claus’ hair gel?”

“It was in the pocket of his robes.” Brittany shrugged, picking up Blaine’s hand to wrap his fingers around the tin. “He was going to steal  _me_ , so I totally don’t think hair gel’s such a big deal.” Leaning forward, she kissed his cheek. “Merry Christmas, broccoli head.”

He threw his arms around her. “I didn’t get you anything. I’m sorry.”

“You came with me.” She pulled back, a luminous smile on her face and eyes as bright as the pastel blue eyeshadow she’d applied. “I’m happy that I get to share this super cool experience with my friend.” Her eyes sparkled as she booped him on the nose with one slender finger. “With you.”

“Brit…” Overwhelmed, Blaine threw his arms around her and squeezed tight. “Thank you. You’re amazing, you know that?”

Behind them, the clearing of a throat startled them. “Yeah…hate to interrupt,” began the Doctor with a warm smile. “But touching as this is, we’ve got a concert to get to?”

* * *

“Ah, Leeds! October 19th, 1974.” Arms wide, the Doctor spun around, the tail of his tweed jacket flaring out behind him. When he came to a stop, he was grinning like a maniac. “Tonight, Ro-”

“Roxy Music is going to be performing at Leeds University in the Student Union,” Blaine piped up, almost bouncing with excitement. “In less than a month their album  _Country Life_  is going to come out, so they’ll probably do some stuff off of that, drum up buzz. Critics will call it their most sophisticated work, and it’s gonna be one of  _four_  Roxy albums on  _Rolling Stone_ ’s list of the 500 greatest albums of  _all_ time.” He squeezed Brittany’s arm through their wool peacoats, wondering how he wasn’t flying off of the ground. “Oh, my  _god_ I can’t believe I’m gonna meet Bryan Ferry.”

The Doctor cast him a nonplussed glance. “This is usually my part…”

“I mean, I totally think  _Siren_  is way more accessible to the general audience but  _Country Life_  is nothing short of  _amazing_ , and -”

“Mr. Anderson.” At the Doctor’s tap on his shoulder, Blaine jumped and spun to see the Time Lord smiling with amusement. “Low key, remember? And no spoilers.”

“Right.” Blaine felt the heat in his cheeks as he looked down at the sidewalk they were traversing, abashed. “Sorry. I got excited.”

“I know.” And the Doctor’s grin got wider. “It’s nice to see.” His hand clapped down harder on Blaine’s shoulder, patting companionably as he eyeballed the crowd of Leeds students streaming into the student union ahead. “Now! We’ve got to get backstage. Come on, ‘round this way.” He ducked down a bit and grabbed Blaine’s hand, dragging him along as he scuttled off into a clutch of hedges. Blaine gripped tighter to Brittany’s arm and hoped she could keep up okay in her heels. The Doctor tugged them around back of the Student Union. “I’ve got all the credentials we need, just need to find a way in…ah! A door.”

“It’s wood,” Blaine ventured, sliding his fingers down to twine in with Brittany’s. “You said the sonic didn’t do wood.”

“The lock’s metal.” With a wink, the Doctor zapped the lock and Blaine heard it click open. In the next instant the Doctor had seized the handle and yanked the door wide, disappearing into a crowd of roadies and technicians. “Come along, Sunshine Twins.”

“Oh, wow,” Blaine murmured, gripping Brittany’s hand tighter and trying to simultaneously look at everything and keep an eye on the Doctor as they wound through the crowd. “I really can’t believe this.”

Brittany shrugged. “How come this is such a big deal? These are just the guys that did that song in  _Pretty Woman_ , right?”

“Ah, no, that’s Roxette. This is Roxy Music.” It was going to be impossible to remember everything but damn if he wasn’t going to try. “Oh man, it’s kind of too bad we’re in the post Brian Eno era because I’d totally kill to meet him, too, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to hear stuff from  _Country Life_  before it was released, have you ever wanted to hear your favorite songs in concert before they were ever put on vinyl?”

“I guess.” Brittany’s eyes were huge as she took in the sight of long haired roadies, glamorously angular backup singers, huge mustaches and bell-bottomed jeans. “This is pretty weird.”

“You almost married St. Nicholas and this is weird?” Blaine shook his head and slung his arm up around her shoulders, squeezing her close. “We really are very different people.”

“It’s okay. I still love you.” She reached her hand up to pat his where it rested on her shoulder. “What’s so special about these guys, anyway?”

Blaine groped for words. “They’re…they’re just incredible. Groundbreaking. They were one of the first rock groups to actually really have a look, a style all their own that they put together. The founding members were art students, so they brought this really…I don’t know, innovative approach to the whole package? They’re all about making art and music and…”

“And that Bryan guy was totally the first guy you ever had a crush on, right?” Once again, Brittany deployed her uncanny ability to arrow straight to the heart of things.

And was correct. Blaine shoved both hands into the pockets of his bell-bottomed jeans and grinned sheepishly, remembering the posters that Cooper had plastered their old playroom with, the posters with the brooding, jaded gaze of Bryan Ferry. “Yeah, that might have had a little to do with it.”

Brittany jostled his arm. “Are you going to tell him?”

“What? No.” Oh no  _way._ The very idea was horrifying. “Why would I do that?”

“Well, I mean, he’s right there, talking to the Doctor.” Pointing ahead, Brittany indicated exactly that, one lanky Time Lord in tweed talking to the sulky yet earnest object of all of Blaine’s early adolescent wet dreams and then oh lord, beckoning them over to join them. “What are you going to tell him, then? They want us to go over there.”

Oh god. In the pockets of his jeans, Blaine felt his hands beginning to sweat. “Do I look okay?” he asked frantically, pulling his hands out and wiping them down the dark burgundy denim. “You’d tell me if I didn’t, right?”

“I thought you weren’t going to tell him you liked him,” Brittany protested as he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her along behind him. “Does it matter what you look like?”

It was too late now, anyway. He’d started moving before he thought things through and now he was standing in front of Bryan Ferry.  _Bryan Ferry._ Outwardly, Blaine was maintaining his best composure, but on the inside he was totally dying. Fortunately, he didn’t have to speak yet; the Doctor was busy making introductions. “Bryan Ferry, I’d like you to meet my companions, Brittany Pierce and Blaine Anderson.” He brought a friendly hand down on Blaine’s shoulder. “Blaine here is an especial fan of yours.”

“Yeah?” Bryan tilted his head back and looked the two of them over. “Hey. Nice to meet you.” His voice was smooth and low and turned Blaine’s knees to jelly.

The Doctor leaned down to whisper in Blaine’s ear. “Ah, I’m afraid the high five won’t be common for about three more years, so I’m going to ask you to confine yourself to shaking his hand.”

“Right,” Blaine breathed, amazed he was getting that much out. Wiping his hands down his jeans one more time, he extended one out to his musical idol, watching in disbelief as  _Bryan Ferry_  reached out and clasped it and shook it. _Oh my god Bryan Ferry is shaking my hand oh my god oh my god?_  “Really nice to meet you too, wow, I mean, I’m really looking forward to seeing you play. It’s such an honor.”

“Don’t get many American fans,” Bryan mused. “Cool. Thanks for coming out. Mr. Smith here says you traveled hard to get here.”

“Yeah.” All Blaine could do was stare and breathe and, oh, god, he was  _still_ shaking Bryan Ferry’s hand. Embarrassed, he pulled back in haste, resisting the urge to clutch his hands to his heart and completely fangirl out.  _Be cool._ “Worth it, though. Are you going to play any new stuff?”

“Yeah, might do.” Winking, the lead singer of Roxy Music and one of the greatest living British musicians in the world clapped Blaine on the shoulder and grinned broadly. “Hope you like it. Listen, gotta go, right? We’re already running really late and if we don’t get out there the masses could riot.”

“Right, right…” He  _knew_  he was all starry eyed and that there was a limit to how composed he could be, but whatever, Blaine didn’t care because  _Bryan Ferry_. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Ferry.”

“Bryan.” Another wink and Bryan loped off, disappearing into the shifting crowd backstage. Blaine closed his eyes tight, trying to burn every second of the encounter into his memory. He never  _ever_  wanted to forget this.

“He was nice,” Brittany commented, toying with her ponytail. “I can see why you like him.”

Blaine opened his eyes and turned to the Doctor, overwhelmed with joy and delight. “Thank you, Doctor. Just…thank you so much.”

“It was my pleasure, Blaine Anderson.” The Doctor nodded solemnly, but the twinkle in his eyes betrayed his enjoyment of the moment. He looped one arm through each of theirs and began to lead them to the wings of the stage. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Blaine echoed back, feeling at last, after everything, like he could say it and really mean it. “Merry Christmas.”


	12. One Last Stop, One Final Destination

“You’re sure about this.” The Doctor glanced between Brittany and Blaine and Lord Tubbington, searching their faces for certainty. “You really can’t think of anywhere else to go?”

“Well, we’re not welcome back in New New York because Lord Tubbington was inappropriate with the cat nurses,” Brittany sighed.

“I’ve never seen a neutered cat behave that way,” Blaine marveled, scratching the chubby feline behind his ears. “Actually, I’ve never seen a cat act like that at all. It’s usually dogs that go around hu-”

“Right! Not welcome in New New York,” interrupted the Doctor. “Wouldn’t you like to see Canarinale?”

Brittany pulled a long string of bright pink chewing gum out of her mouth and wound it around her finger, sucking it back in with an obnoxious slurp. “The Prime Minister said not to come back until Blaine stops getting upset at the sight of the parakeets.”

Blaine slumped back against his seat. “Some memories are still a little raw.”

Frowning, the Doctor moved to consult the monitor, pulling up a twinkling map of the entire universe. “I can’t have taken you everywhere. We haven’t visited Paris! How does…1793 sound?”

“Like a Charles Dickens novel.” Blaine directed his bland reply to the ceiling of the TARDIS. The Doctor brightened.

“I love Dickens! Which novel…oh.” His face fell. “Right. Bad idea.”

A thoughtful look crossed Brittany’s face. “Do you know anyplace where the buildings are made of candy? Not the Christmas place though. They might still be mad at you.”

Scoffing, Blaine rolled his eyes from the ceiling over to fix on Brittany. “ _You_  set Kringle’s throne room on fire.”

“Yeah, but he wanted to  _marry_  me,” she countered. “And I didn’t break his robots.”

“Technically neither did I -”

“But you helped -”

“So did your  _cat -_ ”

“I have an idea,” interjected the Doctor rather loudly, overriding both of them. Blaine broke off his argument with a huff, and Brittany did the same, both of them turning in their seats to face the Doctor expectantly.   
  
Silence reigned in the TARDIS, broken only by the swish of Lord Tubbington’s tail over the bench seat upon which he was perched.   
  
Blaine finally couldn’t stand it anymore. “Okay, so…what’s the idea?”  
  
“Oh, I don’t really have one,” was the sheepish reply. “I just wanted to stop you two fighting.”  
  
Brittany pirouetted in place, making the hem of her Cheerios skirt flare out, and flopped over onto the bench next to Lord Tubbington. “Maybe it’s time to go home,” she sighed, even her ponytail drooping forlornly. “We’ve been here forever.”  
  
To Blaine’s surprise, the suggestion of ending their journey sent a pang of sadness through his heart. “Not forever,” he protested, glancing at his phone. “Just a…oh wow, a month, really?”  
  
“Relatively speaking.” The Doctor, leaning against the console, waved a hand in nonchalance. “I can still get you back to the precise moment you left.”  
  
Blaine couldn’t stop staring at his phone, which was proclaiming it to be January 24th, 2013 in his home time. A entire month, much of it spent rocketing through time and space, having adventures, dodging danger, experiencing a life like no other. Much of it spent not thinking obsessively about Kurt, after that single holiday phone call.

Huh.

He brushed his thumb over the image on his phone desktop, where Kurt’s campaign picture had been replaced by a photo of himself and Brittany grinning in front of the Glass Pyramid of San Kloon. In the 72nd Century. Under a quintuple moon.

Blaine Anderson was not the same heartbroken teenage boy he’d been just a single (apparent) month ago.  
  
He could see just by a glance at Brittany that she had undergone a similar transformation. She was sad right now, but it was just over their adventure coming to an end. The air of persistent hurt that had surrounded her since her breakup with Santana had dissipated. Just like the constant ache in his heart had finally receded.   
  
She’d been totally right with her wacky, madcap idea. It had been precisely and exactly what they’d needed.

  
But…yeah. It was definitely time to go home and resume their lives. Cracked, but whole. Bent, not broken.  
  
“You’re right, Brittany,” he admitted quietly, raising his head to smile at his traveling companions. “I think we’re ready. I think it’s time.”

The Doctor glanced between them, his expression inscrutable. “You’re in agreement? You’re sure? Absolutely sure?”

  
Tilting her head up, Brittany cast a thoughtful gaze at the ceiling for a moment or two before looking over at Blaine. Blaine felt his smile widen as he nodded to her.

Brittany stood up and crossed over to the Doctor, placing her hands on his shoulders and stretching up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Yeah. We should go home.”

A smile with the lightest touch of sadness curved the Doctor’s mouth up, and he reached forward to tug on Brittany’s ponytail. “Permission to take you one more place, first?”

Blaine and Brittany exchanged glances and shrugged. “Sure,” Blaine agreed, bouncing up the steps to join the others by the console. “Did you have anywhere in mind?”

“As it happens,” the Doctor informed them, spinning around to start flicking switches and pulling levers. “I do.”

* * *

The world around them sparkled. Literally sparkled, a dazzling stretch of starlight and moonbeams extending all around them from where they stood in the doorway of the TARDIS.

The Doctor pulled pairs of sunglasses from his jacket pockets and handed them around. “You’ll need these. Sorry, I forgot.”

“Where are we?” Wonder overtook all of Blaine’s mind as he slipped on the dark glasses and let his eyes adjust to the bright gleam of this new planet. It seemed the ground as far as he could see was paved in diamonds. Brittany leaned down and scooped up a handful, staring at them in fascination before letting them run through her fingers.

“They’re so pretty,” she breathed, keeping one large one in hand and examining it closely. “They’re swirly in the middle. Like blue rainbows.”

Blaine couldn’t help but chuckle. “Rainbows aren’t just blue, Britt.”

“These are.” She bounced over and held the not-diamond up to his face. “See?”

“She’s quite right, you know, Blaine.” Behind his own dark glasses, the Doctor was beaming in pride and delight at Brittany. “Rainbows are actually all shades of blue here. Well. Blue, green, violet. Those are the colors refracted in the Crystalline Rainfall, and they’re frozen in the hearts of these stones.”

Mouth agape, Blaine plucked the stone out of Brittany’s hand and stared at it. Sure enough, a swirling rainbow of beautiful jeweled tones of aqua and seafoam and hyacinth and a thousand more shades he’d never seen in his life pulsed in the deep heart of the crystal. “Impossible.”

“Says the man who shook hands with Bryan Ferry 21 years before he was scheduled to be born?” The Doctor’s eyebrow was cocked up in an expression of amusement that had become all too familiar in the last several weeks. “You never will rethink your understanding of time and space, will you?”

“It’s one of my more endearing qualities.” But Blaine couldn’t interject the retort with the amount of snark usually required to make it funny and stinging. He was too entranced by the shifting shades of the stone in his hand.”Doctor, come on, where are we?”

“Where I was supposed to go before the two of you pulled me off course.” The chiding in the Doctor’s voice wasn’t real, though, and he pulled down his glasses for a second to drop a wink at them. “The Crystalline Wastelands of Limona Orchidiosa.”

Skipping over to a large hill of crystals, Brittany picked up another one and held it up to the sky, letting the sun refract through it to send blue rainbows jetting everywhere. “Can we bring some of these home?”

“’Course you can. That’s why we’re here.” The Doctor had shoved his glasses back up his nose and was stooping to trail his hand through the glittering crystals at his feet. “This is one of the last places in the universe where humans had never set foot. Well, until now.” His hand stilled in the motion of combing through the stones, and Blaine could see his shoulders tense. “I was supposed to bring Am…some friends here. Before. But I kept putting it off.”

“The friends you lost.” Blaine made it a statement, not a question. There was no sense in asking, he could see the facts written in the Doctor’s set jaw, his taut shoulders, his utter stillness. Part of him wanted to know more, but he couldn’t bring himself to pry.

For all that he had seen, not all things were his to know.

“When they…left…when that happened, I thought I’d come here anyway. Sort of, ah, a bit in memory of them. In a way. In memory of what could have been.” Slowly, with a sigh, the Doctor tipped his head up towards the warmth of the sun, and his fingers began to sift through the crystals again. “But then you and Brittany happened. And I thought…well, I won’t miss a second chance to bring humans to see this. It’s possibly one of the most wondrous sights in all of time and space, don’t you think?”

It  _was_  spectacular. “It’s amazing,” Blaine had to admit.

“Had another reason, too.” In another moment, the Doctor had leaped to his feet and bounded over to pull Brittany up from where she was making crystal angels in a nearby drift of sparkling stones. “As I was saying! We’re here so the two of you can pick out crystals of your own.”

“Like souvenirs?” asked Brittany, turning out her letter jacket pockets to let showers of crystals tumble back to the ground.

“Mm. But better. The true wonder of the Crystalline Wastelands isn’t that they exist – although that’s pretty wondrous - it’s the Limonian crystals themselves! Incredible stuff, really. Completely indestructible.” The Doctor caught up two fist sized stones and knocked them together. “No cracks, no sparks, they cannot be destroyed. They have no melting point, no breaking point, they’re literally perpetual, everlasting rainwater. They form up there -” he pointed to the sky above - “and they fall to the ground and just pile up, because they never melt or dissolve or evaporate. They harden as soon as they’re generated in those clouds.”

Blaine knew his own face was completely mirroring the look of astonishment on Brittany’s own. “Well, like, how come the planet’s not totally buried under these?” she asked, waving her hand at the endless fields. “When my laundry piles up, I can’t move around my room, so…”

“Because of people like us.” Tossing the crystals in his hands aside, the Doctor grabbed Brittany and Blaine and dragged them over the crest of a nearby hill. He let go of Brittany to gesture at the crowds of aliens and humanoid looking beings that were thronging the valley below, picking through drifts and hillocks of twinkling stones. “Tourist trade! Limona Orchidiosa is a hugely popular wedding and honeymoon destination here in the Persephone Cascade. Well, when it’s not the rainy season – you can imagine why that might not be much fun.”

They could. One of the stones nearby was the size of a toddler.  
  


“The Limonians saw a need and a way to fulfill it. They get tourists actually paying for the privilege to clean off the planet by collecting crystals for souvenirs! It’s incredible, isn’t it? Most folks have to  _pay_  to have the house cleaned!” Now the smile that stretched across the Doctor’s face rivaled the crystals in brightness. “It’s really fantastically brilliant. But! There’s more.”

“How can there be more?” Blaine scrambled to keep up when the Doctor took off dragging them again, all their feet slipping and sliding in the crystals and sparking off rainbows as he pulled them down into the valley. “It’s already way too much to believe.”

“There’s a reason it’s popular for weddings and honeymoons.” With a deft motion, the Doctor flung his arms – and perforce, Brittany and Blaine – out in front of him, letting them go and sending them flying across the ground, scattering crystals everywhere. “Because the crystals can’t be destroyed, the legend says they symbolize a pure and everlasting love. Because they have a living heart of blue rainbows, they symbolize an indefatigable, yet steady passion. To receive one as a gift is considered the ultimate expression of an unbreakable, true and destined love.” He grinned at them. “Now do you get it?”

It felt as though Blaine’s eyes would pop out of his head. “They’re not souvenirs for  _us_.”

“I can give one to Santana,” Brittany whispered, blue eyes as bright as the crystal she’d just picked up.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you two. Smart as whips!” Reaching out, the Doctor shoved them towards the nearest pile of crystals. “Meet me back at the TARDIS in one hour, and Bob’s your uncle, I’ll have you home.”

“My uncle’s name is Randy,” Brittany corrected. Blaine laughed and slipped his hand into hers, taking off at a run and making her giggle as she skipped along behind. “We’ll see you in a little bit, Doctor!”

“Pick nice ones,” the Doctor called after them, still beaming.

* * *

“It was nice of Limonians to set these for us.” Brittany turned the pair of Limonian crystal earrings over in her hands, smiling softly as the sun overhead refracted beams of cobalt, peridot, and amethyst over her skin. “They’re so pretty. I can’t wait for Santana to see them.”

“She’ll love them,” Blaine assured her. He was slightly less certain about the cufflinks he held, simple squares of titanium, each with a perfectly shaped and sunny-day-clear Limonian crystal set into it. “I hope -”

“Kurt will love anything you give him. Because it’s from you.” Slipping the earrings back into their purple velvet pouch, Brittany tucked it into her pocket and linked hands with Blaine again, leaning to place an awkward kiss on his cheek. “When are you going to see him?”

“I don’t know. Whenever he can get home, I guess.” All he could do was shrug. “It’s not up to me.”

“Oi, you there!” The shout caught their attention, and they looked up to see the TARDIS ahead, Doctor hanging out of the doors, shirt sleeves rolled back as he waved at them. “Find what you liked?”

“Totally! You gotta see these.” Breaking into a sprint, Brittany careened up the hill and threw herself at the Doctor, who had braced himself in anticipation of one of her famous tackle-hugs. “They’re perfect. You’re way awesome for bringing us here.”

“Well, you know. I try.” Tilting up his chin, he met Blaine’s gaze. “What about you?”

Blaine nodded. “Yeah, I think Kurt will like it.” He hoped, anyway.

“Good. Get in here. Time to get you two back in time for Christmas morning!” The Doctor had spun on his heel and darted away into the TARDIS, leaving them no choice but to follow. Lord Tubbington padded up to Brittany and butted his head against her shin, yowling out what sounded like a scolding.

Brittany scooped him up and hugged him. “Sorry, but you know how you are with shiny things. Don’t worry, I got you a nice collar.”

The cat huffed and settled into her arms, seemingly mollified. Blaine shook his head. Cats.

In his pocket, his phone buzzed. Blaine pulled it out to gaze at the screen with surprise. This was a call not to pass up. “Mr. Hummel?”

“One of these days, Anderson, you  _will_  call me Burt.” But Kurt’s father wasn’t nearly as gruff as he thought he was, and Blaine could hear the exasperated grin in his voice. “Listen, your parents are outta town, right?”

“Yes, sir. They’re in Tahiti,” Blaine replied, wondering at the question. Was Burt going to invite him for Christmas dinner with Finn and Carole? That would probably be odd. Even though Burt had demonstrated a stubborn penchant for behaving as a surrogate father to Blaine despite the break up, it still seemed strange that he’d go so far as to invite his son’s ex-boyfriend over for Christmas.

Not as strange as what Burt actually said next, though. “I’m gonna come pick you up tomorrow morning, kiddo. You’re coming with me to New York. Gonna surprise Kurt.”

“Sir?” Yeah, this was weird. “I don’t think -”

“Not askin’ you to. Just be on your front porch tomorrow with whatever’ll do you for a couple days in New York, I’ll take care of the rest.” Then Burt sounded like he was hesitating. “I’ll explain on the plane. There’s some stuff going on you need to know about.”

Oh, that wasn’t worrying at all. “Is everything okay?”

“Tell you on the plane. See you tomorrow, Blaine.” And before Blaine could protest, the call disconnected, and he was left staring again at the photo of himself, Brittany, and a huge glass pyramid.

He didn’t like the sound of this. But he did like the idea of seeing Kurt, of giving him the cufflinks. Blaine felt his eye twitch with the conflict, and had to take a few deep breaths to settle down. It wasn’t as if there was much he could do at the moment, Burt was unlikely to pick up if Blaine tried to call back.

Fiddling with the little pouch in his jeans pocket, he traversed the steps up to the platform, where at the console’s monitor, the Doctor was examining the screen and tapping on an antique typewriter. Upon Blaine’s approach, his eyebrow went up and his face sobered. “That sounded interesting,” he remarked with a casualness that Blaine saw clearly was a put-on. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah.” More or less. “I think. Kurt’s father wants me to go to New York with him and surprise Kurt.”

“Oh, that’s fun. You can give him his present.” But his eyes slid over and Blaine felt the distinct sensation of being closely, if somewhat peripherally, examined. “That everything?”

“No.” Blaine shook his head, closing his hand around his phone and holding it close to his chest. “But he wouldn’t tell me more.”

“Sound important then. Better get the target time right, eh?” The Doctor’s eyes were steady and cautious. “Or we can keep going. Last chance to keep traveling.”

The temptation to put off whatever bad news Burt had for him was great.

But the pull to see Kurt was greater.

Sighing, Blaine reached over and tapped their destination time on the antique keys of the typewriter. “No.” He glanced over to where Brittany was cooing and trying to affix a pretty collar studded with Limonian crystals around Lord Tubbington’s neck. “No. I…I can’t run anymore.”

“Ah, Blaine Anderson.” A lopsided smile twitched at the Doctor’s mouth as he pulled the largest lever on the console and set the time rotor pumping. “You were never running.”

Blaine raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t?”

“Not at all.” The Doctor’s smile broadened. He reached out with his elbow and jostled Blaine’s arm as the TARDIS wheezed into life and jolted off into the Time Vortex. “You were just taking a long detour.”

 


End file.
